An attempt is made to share the truth regarding issues concerning Israel and her right to exist as a Jewish nation. This blog has expanded to present information about radical Islam and its potential impact upon Israel and the West. Yes, I do mix in a bit of opinion from time to time.

Friday, July 04, 2014

Remember Your Right to Happiness

Revolutions are not unique. Some countries have revolutions all the time
until revolution becomes their national sport. In banana republics the
overthrow of one dictator to make way for another gives everyone a day
off from work.

These
revolutions, no matter how they are cloaked in the familiar rhetoric of
liberty, are nothing more than tyranny by other means.

What made
the American Revolution unique was that its cause was not the mere
transfer of power from one ruler to another or one system to another,
but a fundamental transformation of the nature of rule.

Every revolution claims to be carried out in the name of the people, but it's never the people who end up running things.

The
Declaration of Independence did more than talk about the rights of the
people. It placed the people at the center of the nation and its
government, not as an undifferentiated mass to be harnessed for whatever
propaganda purposes they might be good for, but as individuals with
hopes and dreams.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that
all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed."

That is not merely some bland reference to a mass of
people. There is no collective here, only the individual. The greater
good of independence is not some system that will meet with the approval
of the mass, but that will make it possible for the individual, each
individual, to live a free life, not a life lived purely for the good of
the mass, but for his own sake.

In a time when government
mandates what you can eat and how much of it, only one of the ways it
seeks to regulate every aspect of daily life for the greater good-- the
declaration that started it all declares that the purpose of government
is not social justice, a minimally obese population, universal tolerance
or even equality. Equality is acknowledged as a fact, not as a goal.

Instead the goal of government is to allow people to be happy.

That
seems like a silly goal. What kind of great nation gets started by
asserting that government exists to allow people to be happy? But look
at the common condition of any tyranny. Take in that sense of 1984ness
and its most obvious characteristic is unhappiness. People are
persistently unhappy under a tyranny, whether they are rich or poor,
because they are robbed of the necessary freedom to pursue individual
happiness.

They are not allowed to be individuals.

We live
in an age of collective tyrannies under systems that seek to maximize
the ideal welfare of the group. They care nothing for the happiness of
the individual. And they care even less for the notion that the
individual has a right to achieve that happiness by pursuing it on its
own terms, rather than through their socially-approved and market-tested
form of happiness.

The Declaration of Independence lays out the
conundrum that governments exist to allow individuals to pursue their
own forms of happiness.

A government that makes it possible for
individuals to do that cannot be a tyranny. And conversely a government
that makes it impossible is a tyranny.

Modern revolutions are
solution-based. So are modern governments. Redistribute the wealth.
Power to the workers. Put X in charge. Strengthen Laws Y through Z.
Impose your will on everyone else. And there is the Declaration of
Independence, old and worn, offering up an idea as fragile as a
butterfly, that government does not exist to impose solutions, but to
protect the individual's pursuit of happiness.

What
is it that threatens the individual pursuit of happiness? Government.
The proper government that the Declaration of Independence gives weight
to is one that protects the people from government; other governments as
well as their own. It protects from them from being regarded as a mass,
a great porridge of people to be poured into the proper molds. It
protects them from being an undifferentiated mass reduced to a
mathematical average of allotted happiness based on the latest trends in
sociological happiness research.

It protects their individuality.

The
pursuit of happiness is not necessarily wise. It is often foolish. One
man finds happiness in overeating and yet he lives in a society where
his pursuit of gorging on giant sodas and salty snacks is protected from
all the fidgeting experts eager to rush in and begin prodding him into
good health. Another man finds happiness in inventing airplanes and is
free to attempt flight despite all the bearded men and women wearing
fake Indian jewelery and smelling of patchouli who want him to write up
an environmental impact statement.

Happiness is individual and
individuals are eccentric. Their pursuits of happiness will lead to both
good and bad. Individuality is the ultimate diversity and there is no
substitute for it if you want a society that breaks through barriers,
rather than wrestling in the streets over the fortieth revolution that
will finally convince everyone that the right way to live is under
Osceopeology. (It won't.)

The Declaration of Independence was
not only a national statement, but an individual statement as well. It
envisioned a government fit for individuals, rather than massive masses.
A government that would free individuals to pursue their own goods,
rather than enslaving them to the greater good that is intellectually
fashionable at any given moment.

And that is what makes it more
relevant than ever. The Redcoats are not about to march into Boston, but
the Regulators are. The rising power of government has transformed its
laws and systems into a means for the elites to impose their will on the
whole country, to stamp out their private pursuits of happiness for
collective ends.

The nanny state, like every good nanny, is
suspicious of private and unsupervised pursuits of happiness. It accepts
equality not as a fact, but as a goal, whose achievement requires the
absolute and total regulation of all private matters and activities. It
has no truck with liberty because it understands, rightly, that liberty
imposes limitations on its powers of control.

The Fourth is not
only a celebration of nationhood, but of a nation of individuals. It is
as much a celebration of private freedoms as of public ones. It is a
celebration of a nation of individuals capable of voluntarily pursuing
their happiness by securing a nation, rather than a nation of slaves
waiting to be given their marching orders by another government agency.

An
inalienable right can be restricted or taken away, but it never
disappears. It never goes away because its origin source in a Divine
Power transcends governments and ideologies. It is not bound by the
fashions of the day. It is a permanent and absolute statement that the
dignity of the individual is not distributed with a soup ladle in the
shelter of the state, but comes from the individual.

It is not the people that need governments. It is governments that need people.

As
we celebrate the Fourth in an America where the pursuit of individual
happiness has been forgotten and repressed, mark the occasion by
exercising your right to the pursuit of your happiness.

Daniel
Greenfield is a New York City based writer and blogger and a Shillman
Journalism Fellow of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

We are hypocrites and cowards - we take freedom for granted as it is eroding underneath our feet‏

Message to offended Muslims

A GOOD, TRUE STORY NOT KNOWN BY MANY.....Air Force.

The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

What happened?

Mark Hasten Tribute Video Touro College

Housing Quiz

The Record-so far...!

CBS special on Bengazi

Report: 83 percent of doctors have considered quitting over Obamacare

Sally Nelson

Eighty-three percent of American physicians have considered leaving their practices over President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, according to a survey released by the Doctor Patient Medical Association.

Islamization on the move

"What we are dealing with is Islamization. Islamization is the imposition of ideological norms in increasing severity. Like Nazification, it transforms a society by remaking it in its own image from the largest to the smallest of details."Daniel Greenfield

Toronto rejects Anti-Israel Ads...

Shrinking Lands

Why Israel opposes international forces in the jordan valley/

/why-israel-opposes-international-forces-in-the-jordan-valley/

Islam is Islam, And That’s It

Back in 2007, when confronted with the phrase “moderate Islam”, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan famously responded: “These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.”

Many thanks to Vlad Tepes for uploading and annotating this video: View video at http://gatesofvienna.net/

There's no racist like a liberal racist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vz4PjxSmtoI

Ex-Navy SEAL Drops Bombshell On FOX: Says Government is Creating Conditions to Impose Martial Law R

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuds14OBiE#t=156

American surprise

The Nairobi Mall Massacre

Ninh Chu Ninh Chu

Islam Untied

Platitudes about Islam being a faith of peace are not credible anymore. Islam is only as good as the way its followers practice it; and if they have created killing fields in the name of Islam, then Islam will be recognized by the silence of those who did not speak out when their faith was being massacred to massacre humanity.

AFTERBURNER w/ BILL WHITTLE: The Lynching

What-are you against peace?

Sydney Wake Up The Horrific Muslim Infiltration Of Britain - Luton

Kerry: 'Core Issue of Instability ... Is the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict'‏

Kerry is no friend. By endorsing the "Arab peace initiative" he shows his true intentions and beliefs . And by endorsing linkage he shows that he is either a liar or a fool.Syria is on fire, Egypt is at best incredibly unstable and this is due to Israel? It is out in the open!

A word to left-wing students

In their own words-ru listening?

"The lesson these Islamist groups appear to be drawing from events in Egypt is that democratic engagement with opponents is pointless. And that doesn't bode well for countries with strong Islamist movements..."

Flashback: Obama Admits He Cut Medicare

Another Democratic slogan blown to h....

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

When nations and cultures ignore the early warning signs of the infiltration of radical Islam

The UK has 85 sharia courts. France has over 750 “no go zones,” Muslim enclaves where even French police don’t enter.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDKk15KcqNk&feature=email

No such thing as "Islamophobia"

However, if you do not want your positions challenged or criticized or even researched, make up a new "phobia"-shout it long enough and some "people", agenda driven, will use it. Ay, yes, the false term does keep many, many financially rewarded-follow the money.gs don morris, Ph.D.

Khader Adnan: Leader of Islamic jihad or innocent baker?

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.More...

Omar Barghouti's Propaganda at USC on January 12, 2012

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’ -- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.Clare M. Lopez

Americans are opening their eyes

Advertisers fleeing All-American Muslim 'propaganda'The American people are seeing through the propaganda piece that is TLC's All-American Muslim reality/dawah show, and responsible advertisers are fleeing in droves. The show aims to combat a trumped-up problem, "Islamophobia," by presenting Muslims who are just ordinary folk, and

Why Islam is Incompatible with Western Law

Col. Allen West answers a question on muslim terror

Challah's Gaza Rocket Counter

This Month:4Last Month:191

This Year: 562

Total since 2002: 12055

Cease fire Hamas style!!

Thanks http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/

"Islamophobia"

"Islamophobia" was a politically manipulative coinage designed to silence critics of Islamic supremacism.It was invented, deliberately, by a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, the International Institute for Islamic Thought, which is based in Northern Virginia.

10 Unknown West Bank Facts

Liberals Redefine "Extremism" and the "Political Center"

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist.The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Don’t ever call it ‘West Bank’ again

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Who do the territories belong to?

The legal borders of Israel under international law

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror YeminiIn 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state. Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

How Liberals Argue

Hebrew Univ-you rock!!

Judea and Samaria are not "occupied" lands-why?

Judea-Samaria were not only parts of the ancient Jewish homeland but were recognized as part of the Jewish National Home recognized by San Remo and the League of Nations [1920, 1922] and by the UN charter [article 80; 1945].

"Political Correctness."

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."Texas A&M

Christopher Monckton Speaking in St. Paul on the climate issues

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

WHAT Golda Meir actually said...

"When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? It was either southern Syria before the First World War, and then it was a Palestine including Jordan. It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist." Golda Meir June 15, 1969: Interview in the UK Sunday Times

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

About Me

Semi-retired Professor, now also permanent resident of Israel;divides time between both countries-serves on several Boards of Directors for Israel advocacy groups;Chana, resident of Jerusalem, JCPA member